Daily Archives: May 29, 2016
Great Pacific Seafoods files for bankruptcy, shuts down operations in Alaska and elsewhere
Great Pacific Seafoods, a processor with three plants and hundreds of workers in Alaska, announced Sunday that it is filing for bankruptcy and shutting down operations. The company kept corporate headquarters in Seattle but plants in Kenai, Whittier and Anchorage that processed salmon from the Copper River, Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet, as well as cod from the Gulf of Alaska. It pulled out of an operation buying Arctic chum in Kotzebue last summer. The move comes days after Great Pacific’s Kenai plant suddenly closed. The company filed for bankruptcy in Washington State, the release said. “We believe we have no other choice given the financial performance we experienced last year,” the statement said. Read the rest here 20:48
Central Coast Crab fishermen making sacrifices to protect whales
It’s been a rough season for crab fishermen after a domoic acid outbreak kept them out of the water for months. And now that they’re finally allowed to fish, many are choosing to wrap-up early in an effort to protect whales in the Monterey Bay. It’s feeding time for humpback whales but because of the delay in crab season, whales are getting caught in fishing gear that’s normally not in the water this time of year. That’s why crab fisherman, ocean advocacy groups and governmental agencies are teaming up to prevent whale entanglements in the Monterey Bay. “We’re doing everything we can to reduce entanglements and working with the environmental groups and whale disentanglement teams to alter our gear types and ways we fish to reduce entanglements,” said commercial fisherman Walter Deyerle. Read the rest here 18:03
Cape Cod Gray seals’ impact comes into focus for students that quantified the numbers
In April, Aaron Knight flew a small plane along the shore of South Monomoy Island off the Chatham coast, taking an aerial video of a seal-lined beach below him. Among the many who saw the film on Facebook was Peter Trull, field naturalist, author and a seventh-grade science teacher at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Harwich. Like everyone, he was amazed. One Facebook post quipped there appeared to be “trillions of seals.” Maybe not trillions, but the images did beg the question, how many? But one unanswered question, Trull said, is how many seals are there? “There’s no number,” he said. “There are estimates and some speculation, but no number.” In the aerial images, Trull saw an opportunity to find the answer. Trull has done many aerial counts of various species for NOAA, the Center for Coastal Studies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service. Trull combined his expertise with a lesson for his students. Read the rest here 17:21
Repeat illegal fishing offences land B.C. Fisherman in jail — again
A commercial fisherman who sold up to $100,000 in illegally-acquired crab and halibut has been given a rare sentence of 21 days in jail for breaching his probation conditions. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says Scott Steer was arrested at sea on April 10 for “failing to comply with a court order banning him from being on any vessel other than BC Ferries.” Jim Robson, the department’s acting area chief for the South Coast, said Steer was apprehended at sea with the help of members of the Canadian Coast Guard while he was en route to crab fishing grounds. He said Steer has a “considerable list of violations.” The DFO said this is Steer’s third jail term and that he was previously sentenced for various violations of “high volume, commercial quantities” of unauthorized crab and fish sales, each of them worth thousands of dollars. Read the story here 15:48
Dutch Baldwin sets snakehead record at 18.42 pounds
Over the past four years spent as a commercial boat fisherman, Dutch Baldwin has spent four or five nights per week on the water. Last weekend, though, brought a night that made history, when Baldwin caught a Maryland-record 18.42-pound northern snakehead. Baldwin and his fishing partner, Franklin Shotwell, were just about to head in for the evening when they made a detour toward an area where they usually find catfish. They turned their lights on, and Shotwell spotted a snakehead on Baldwin’s side of the boat. Baldwin used his compound bow to hit the fish near Marshall Hall on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. “We have a quota that we need to sell, so we go out and do what we can,” Baldwin said. “If we get more, we have more. We keep it, or we give it away.” Read the story here 15:01
‘Deadliest Catch’ star Capt. Keith Colburn returns to Seattle with a Wizard’s brew
Call it The Return of the Wizard. The crab boat helmed by Capt. Keith Colburn of “The Deadliest Catch” reality television show arrived in Seattle this month with a special cargo: a barrel of a traditional Scandinavian spirit. Bluewater Organic Distilling owner John Lundin was on hand to greet Colburn and take possession of the barrel, which contains a batch of akvavit. Lundin crafted the akvavit at his distillery on the Everett waterfront before sending it to sea to age aboard the F/V Wizard. Barrel-aging in the hold of ships is the traditional way to make the spirit. Sampling the akavit on its return to port, Lundin said it was fabulous. Read the story here 13:20
Winners and Losers – The politics of fisheries decisions in Lobster Fishing Area 25
With just about any political decision there are winners and there are losers. A tax break helps some while others pay through a reduction in service somewhere else. There are also winners and losers, or at least a perception of such, in the case of Federal Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo’s decision last week to increase the minimum lobster carapace size in Lobster Fishing Area 25. The Maritime Fishermen’s Union in New Brunswick can claim to be the winner, in that it had been lobbying for an increase, while the Prince County Fishermen’s Association in P.E.I. is taking the loss as it had been arguing in favour of leaving the size limit unchanged. Read the rest here 12:15
Exporting crustaceans a ‘crazy juggling game’ – Maine Coast Co. delivers lobsters around the world
Every day is a “crazy juggling game” for Tom Adams, owner of the wildly successful lobster wholesaler Maine Coast Company. His product is live and perishable. His customers are in Seoul, South Korea, Madrid, Spain, or San Francisco. He has to worry about Homeland Security regulations, endless paperwork for China exports, planes that don’t take off on time. “There’s a lot of risk when your product is controlled by Mother Nature,” said Adams. “We have to get it where it’s going in 48 to 60 hours. Any delay means it doesn’t get there alive. My strong point, I think, is that I have the gut instinct to most of the time play the market correctly. It’s no different than oil futures or some other commodity. It’s just that I’m dealing in lobsters.” Read the story here 11:44
LIFO panel gets personal stories at Gander hearings-Who will share the northern shrimp?
Glen Best is a fifth-generation fisherman who lives on Fogo Island. Since 1990, he’s invested about $5 million in his fishing enterprise — buying new vessels and fishing licences, and transitioning his enterprise from groundfish to crab and, since 1998, to shrimp. He was one of about 100 people who came to Gander Thursday to present to the federal panel appointed by Fisheries and Oceans Minister Hunter Tootoo to review the (LIFO) policy on northern shrimp. Best’s story was similar to the one told by several other fishermen at the hearing. Read the rest here 11:28
